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Among the contemporary issues in the global environment is how countries' and regions' interactions benefit economic agents, especially in developing countries where poverty prevails. Over the years, globalization has continued to increase, mainly as a result of differences in resources and technology, but how it affects the poor has remained one of the central issues in international economics. In this paper, we thus developed a Globalization-Growth-Poverty (GGP) triangular nexus to provide an answer to whether globalization and growth can help India achieve Goal 1 of sustainable development. The cointegration approach was used, and our result validates the globalization-led growth hypothesis and shows interconnectedness among globalization, economic growth, and poverty, which confirms the GGP triangular nexus. Our results further show that growth and globalization have a positive near future impact on poverty in India. Thus, the results suggest to the government and policymakers that the achievement of poverty reduction and sustainable development in India can be realized with sustained economic growth and increased globalization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the major pressing issues in today's world is meeting the ever-increasing demand for sustainable and environment-friendly energy. To address this issue, renewable systems that capture energy through diverse energy scavenging techniques and devices are gaining interest. Among the aforementioned devices, thermoelectric generators (TEGs) are the temperature-dependent electricity-producing component that converts the temperature gradient (thermal input) directly into electrical energy without negatively affecting the environment. In the present study, a TEG was used to generate electricity using the radiative night-time sky cooling phenomenon. Both experimental and numerical approaches were applied to investigate the morphological characteristics of TEGs for night-time electricity generation. An in-house built night-time TEG model consisting of top and bottom plates, a block, and a TEG module sandwiched between them was used in this study. The effect of morphological characteristics, such as the type of material (Aluminium and Copper), the plate thicknesses, the number of thermocouples and the TEG leg length, on the open-circuit voltage was investigated. Experimental and numerical simulation results were found to be qualitatively consistent. Moreover, the reduction in plate thickness, the increase in the number of thermocouples, and the increase in TEG leg height increased the open-circuit voltage. The proposed model can act as a base model for the design and development of future models for night-time electricity generation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nowadays, Free Space Optical (FSO) communication has attained great importance because of high features such as large data rate, low power, and huge bandwidth. However, FSO technology suffers from several atmospheric effects such as rain, snow, fog, etc. To overcome these issues, an innovative Selective Active Relay (SAR) protocol is proposed in this research. Here, the SAR method is utilized for selecting the relays in FSO, which is used for better communication without any difficulties like atmospheric conditions. Also, a novel Water Pouring Erbium-Doped Fiber Amplifier (WPEDFA) method is introduced to allocate the power for relays and calculates the outage probability. Moreover, the current research introduces an innovative Optimum Enhanced African Buffalo (OE-AB) algorithm to optimize the error and outage probability. Eventually, the proposed approach analyzes the Bit Error Rate (BER) and Quality factor (Q-factor) under atmospheric conditions. Also, the proposed WPEDFA approach is utilized for allocating power to the relays. Moreover, the OE-AB algorithm optimizes the error rate and outage probability. Also, the simulation of this model is done by MATLAB, and attained results prove the effectiveness of the proposed approach. Consequently, it achieves a lower BER and outage probability compared with other techniques. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Single-point incremental forming (SPIF) of polymers was started back in the first decade of twenty-first century; since then, substantial studies have been performed on this topic. The present article reviews these studies and compiles the developments in a comprehensive manner. The review entails a number of forming aspects of polymers, the more important of which are deformation mechanics, failure modes, formability, forming forces, springback, and post-forming material characteristics. The agreements and disagreements amongst the researchers are recognized and critical remarks are provided. The issues are identified, and areas of future work are proposed to further comprehend knowledge on the subject in order to successfully deploy the process on industrial scale. The differences in the characteristics of SPIF of polymers and SPIF of metals are also outlined and discussed in this article. The review concludes that the operating parameters and material are the key factors that affect the process performance. Further, the innovative technology must be adopted, and a larger database should be established to enhance industrial viability of the process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ti50Ni50−xCux (x = 10, 15, 20, 25) ternary shape memory alloys (SMAs) were developed in an arc melting furnace and characterized by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), atomic force microscopy (AFM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and x-ray diffraction (XRD) techniques. The transformation temperatures and thermal hysteresis showed a decreasing trend with the successive addition of Cu. The SEM and XRD results showed the formation of nano-scaled Ti(Ni,Cu)2 type precipitates along with small densities of Ti2Ni type precipitates. The precipitation of fine Ti(Ni,Cu)2 type precipitates was found to be sensitive toward the presence of lattice defects. It is expected that in TiNiCu based SMAs, the precipitation mechanism of Ti(Ni,Cu)2 type precipitates depends upon the relative ease of diffusion of Cu toward the heterogeneous nucleation sites provided by the lattice defects. Surface topographic characteristics of the alloys were also investigated by the AFM. The AFM results showed that the fine acicular martensite structure transformed to coarser acicular martensite with successive addition of Cu followed by different thermal treatments. Hardness showed direct correlation with the Cu content and the thermal treatment employed, whereas cold workability was shown to decrease with the successive addition of Cu in TiNiCu based SMAs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Diagonal quasi-Newton (DQN) methods are a class of quasi-Newton methods which alter the standard quasi-Newton updates of approximations to the Hessian or its inverse to diagonal updating matrices. Most often, the updating formulae for this class of methods are derived by the variational approach. A major drawback under this approach is that the derived diagonal matrix may suffer from the loss of positive definiteness and thus it may not be appropriate for use within a descent-gradient algorithm. Previous strategies to overcome this difficulty concentrated on skipping or restarting the non-descent steps. Doing so would abandon the second derivative information that is found on the previous step and consequently, the speed of convergence is usually slower than it would be without these remedies. Hence the present paper intends to propose a simple yet effective remedy to overcome the difficulty that gives arise non-positive-definite updating matrices in the variational based DQN methods. To this end we find that by incorporating an appropriate scaling for the diagonal updating, it improves step-wise convergence while avoiding non-positive definiteness of the updates. Finally, the new DQN method is tested for computational efficiency and stability on numerous test functions, and the numerical results indicate clear superiority over the current methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We extend the well-known Artstein-Sontag theorem by introducing the concept of control Lyapunov function for the notion of nonuniform in time global asymptotic stability in probability of stochastic differential system, when both the drift and diffusion terms are affine in the control. The main results of our work enable us to derive the necessary and sufficient conditions for feedback stabilization for affine in the control systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two basic disadvantages of the symmetric rank one (SR1) update are that the SR1 update may not preserve positive definiteness when starting with a positive definite approximation and the SR1 update can be undefined. A simple remedy to these problems is to restart the update with the initial approximation, mostly the identity matrix, whenever these difficulties arise. However, numerical experience shows that restart with the identity matrix is not a good choice. Instead of using the identity matrix we used a positive multiple of the identity matrix. The used positive scaling factor is the optimal solution of the measure defined by the problem—maximize the determinant of the update subject to a bound of one on the largest eigenvalue. This measure is motivated by considering the volume of the symmetric difference of the two ellipsoids, which arise from the current and updated quadratic models in quasi-Newton methods. A replacement in the form of a positive multiple of the identity matrix is provided for the SR1 update when it is not positive definite or undefined. Our experiments indicate that with such simple initial scaling the possibility of an undefined update or the loss of positive definiteness for the SR1 method is avoided on all iterations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Grasses have been used widely to remediate contaminants present in domestic wastewater, but leachate generated from municipal solid waste that usually contain some concentrations of heavy metals has never been reported to be treated with grasses, especially Rhodes grass. A series of experiments was performed to investigate the contaminant uptake from municipal solid waste leachate by Chloris gayana (Rhodes grass) grown in combination with two commonly available grass varieties namely Vetiveria zizanioides (Vetiver grass) and Pennisetum purpureum (Elephant grass). Leachate used for the experiments had high values for chemical oxygen demand (5 g/L), pH (8.5), electrical conductivity (9.0 mS/cm), nitrates (182.1 mg/L), phosphates 6.4 mg/L along with heavy metals i.e. copper, zinc and manganese. Different dilutions of leachate ranging from 0 to 100% were applied in batches and their result showed that collectively all the grasses reduced overall contaminant concentrations. These were reported for chemical oxygen demand, electrical conductivity, nitrates, and phosphates reduced up to 67, 94, 94, and 73%, respectively. Metals uptake by grasses also showed a significant decrease in applied dose i.e. zinc (97%), copper (89%), and manganese (89%). Plant analysis showed that all grasses showed preference to heavy metals uptake e.g. Rhodes grass favoured up taking zinc, Elephant grass for copper and Vetiver grass preferred manganese. Overall growth performance of Rhodes grass was better in dilute leachate, whereas in more concentrated leachate, Rhodes grass did not perform better and production of biomass decreased. In Vetiver grass, root and shoot lengths decreased with increasing leachate strength, but the biomass did not change significantly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Here we report X-ray response and optical properties of composite (ZnO)0.8(CdO)0.2 thick film deposited by simple, easy and low cost screen printing technique on glass substrates followed by sintering at 500 °C. X-ray diffraction pattern confirms the polycrystalline structure of the film having hexagonal and cubic structures with preferred orientations of grains along (101) plane for ZnO and (111) plane for CdO. While Raman spectra exhibited strong peaks of E2 (high) phonon and overtone of surface phonon modes at 431 cm−1 and 1145 cm−1 respectively. The absorption coefficient and band gap which are essential for the optoelectronic applications were determined by using UV–visible absorbance data. Photoluminescence spectroscopy of the (ZnO)0.8(CdO)0.2 films showed a strong emission peak at 407 nm near the band edge along with a weak green–yellow emission peak spanning the wavelength range from 450 to 500 nm. The Arrhenius plot of DC conductivity shows semiconductor nature with existing activation energy of about 0.33 eV. The film thickness was measured by profilometry, obtaining a thickness of around 3 µm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]